A Trip to the Zoo
by AwkwardedOut
Summary: An unexpected visitor dropped in on Claire and she had no choice but to confront the root of her problems. Little did she know, the visitor had issues of his own.


Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, Twister, Uno: Wild Tiles, or any other games mentioned here. Some of the information presented here was obtained from Wikipedia or the PETA website.

* * *

The curtains were drawn and the door shut tight. Save for the soft glow of her clock and the sliver of moonlight on her carpet, the room was without light. Claire occupied the bed against the far wall. Huddled and unmoving beneath the comforter, her eyes were shut tightly against the world as she tried to empty her mind, to block out the sounds of her grandmother's shuffling feet in the hall and her mother's voice next door, but still sleep eluded her.

It was the flutter of wings that alerted her to a new presence inside the room. Squinting, she could just make out a silhouette at the foot of her bed. Her muscles tensed as one hand left the warmth of the comforter and stretched toward the container she kept constantly at her bedside, always within reach. Almost there…

"Oh good, you're awake." A deep voice spoke from the other side of the room, startling her. "I wasn't sure what to do if you weren't awake, because I need an accomplice, although I could do this myself, but I really—"

The long ramble was cut off as Claire sprung from her bed and hurled salt into what she hoped was the person's face. When no screams of agony followed, she came to the conclusion that it was not a demon in her room.

Feeling the danger of the situation, Claire made a desperate attempt toward the door. Her hand had just grasped the smooth metal knob when a tight grip wrapped around her arm. She felt a sudden disorientation, as if her world was being turned upside down. The feeling subsided an instant later as her feet found solid ground again. Getting her bearings, she realized that the comfortable warmth of her room had been replaced by the chilly atmosphere of a room that had been air-conditioned throughout the day. Realizing that something still had ahold of her, she raised her only weapon at the figure and thrashed wildly to free herself.

"Let go of me," she shouted.

Claire fell to the hard floor as her arm was released. Ignoring the bumps and bruises she had just acquired, she hurriedly crawled away. She had only ever encountered demons before—and that hadn't even really been her. Whatever this creature was, she had no idea how to defeat it; her best chance at survival was to find the door and run as far away from it as she could, as fast as she could.

"I wish you would stop throwing salt in my face. Although I have become accustomed to discomfort since acquiring this vessel, I do not like that the tiny grains get into my eyes and nose. They sting and it is a very unpleasant sensation."

Claire ignored the rambling and continued on hands and knees until she bumped into something that crashed down in front of her. Just then, harsh white light flooded the room, blinding her momentarily.

When her vision returned, the first thing she saw was the metal stool she had knocked over; next, she noticed white shoes between the bars of the chair. Her gaze traveled up the figure's legs to a torso and further up still. There was a familiar tan trench coat wrapped around the person, unbuttoned and hanging open in the front. She had to clap a hand against her mouth to stifle the cry building in her throat.

Claire had to keep telling herself that the person staring down at her was an imposter. Those unblinking eyes did not belong to a father looking upon his daughter. She knew now that the one who had turned his back on their family—not once, but twice—had not been her father. It had been him—this being before her now.

"Castiel," she whispered.

"So you do remember me," Castiel exclaimed. "I was worried that you might have forgotten."

She was struck speechless by the absurdity of this statement. She could still remember the image of his broad back as he walked away, leaving her and her mother behind. He hadn't even spared them a second glance. How could he think for a second that she would forget the monster that stole her father from her?

"Why am I here?" she asked, forcing the words from her mouth.

"In your father's memories, I see images of him taking you to a place with lots of animals in cages," Castiel replied.

"You mean the zoo?"

"Yes. I thought that perhaps you would like to visit a similar place."

Claire surveyed her surroundings for the first time as she picked herself up off the cold tiles. In the center of the room stood several stainless steel tables cluttered with instruments, while the walls were lined with cages. As she left her spot between the tables and got closer to the cages, she made out shivering dark masses huddled in the corners.

"What… are they?" She asked, unsure if she really wanted to know.

"Monkeys and rabbits, mostly," came the matter-of-fact reply.

"Is this supposed to be a joke? This isn't anything remotely like a zoo." She backed away from the steel bars, unsettled by the sight of the terrified animals.

"Because they do not test mascara products on animals at the zoo?"

"Yes… I mean no… I don't know!"

"You're angry. Was it something I said? Or is it because you too feel the cruelty that is carried out upon the animals?"

Claire could only stare at the thing that wore her father's face, trying to comprehend this change, this new fragility she sensed from him. He felt so different from the being that had hijacked her body for five minutes of bloodshed in the name of the divine. Then, he had left her body and repossessed her injured father, taking him away from her once more. She had thought she would never see him again.

She sighed wearily, shaking her head to free herself of those unwanted memories.

"Why are we here, Castiel? What is it you want from me?"

"Did you know that monkeys are gregarious creatures? They are naturally social, and form a solid community of members that trade services for favors. In some species, the grooming of one's female counterpart will increase the chances of sex. You provide them with a service, and you receive something in return. And yet, with humans, that is not always the case." He continued with his lecture, and even appeared to be speaking to the animals in their prisons. Whether this was one of the myriad abilities angels possessed or a symptom of Castiel's new condition, she had no way of knowing.

"I even made them sandwiches, you know." The sudden change in tone caught her attention. "But none of it made a difference…"

"We're… not talking about monkeys anymore, are we?" she asked skeptically.

"If we were monkeys, they would have owed me some form of debt."

"Sex?" she asked dryly. He tilted his head to the side and gave her a questioning glance. "Nevermind," she said, as blood warmed her face.

If her father had heard her, the lecture he would have given was unthinkable. Her head whipped up at the thought, and she suddenly saw the other person in a different light.

"Can I speak to my dad?" she asked.

"That… is impossible." His eyes quickly shifted to the white floor.

"Please," she implored. "I just want to talk to him. A few minutes—that's all I ask."

"Your father… is no longer here. He is resting at last."

"You don't mean he… T-that can't be true… That's a lie!"

"I uh… I thought maybe we could free the animals together."

"You are the person who took my father away from me," she stated heatedly. "I do not want to help you in your twisted idea of a bonding experience, in this patheticsemblance of human interaction." She kicked the nearest cage in rage, which resulted in a cacophony of howls and screeches from the animals.

"That wasn't very nice. The monkeys really do not like you right now," Castiel told her somberly.

"I don't care about the stupid monkeys," she shouted before burying her face in her hands.

Castiel took a step in Claire's direction. One hand lifted from his side only to drop back down as he continued to stand awkwardly apart from her. When the sniffling and shaking shoulders became too uncomfortable for Castiel to witness, he picked up the nearest object—a long, clear tube—and inspected it.

"The experimenters forcibly place monkeys into these tubes in order to restrain them while they conduct tests," he explained.

Claire offered no reply as she tried to regain her composure, and only half listened as he proceeded to describe the functions of the various instruments in the room. From behind a curtain of blonde hair, she watched the angel's movements. Sometimes he would pick up an instrument briefly before replacing it, other times he would stop before a cage and speak to the animal inside. She thought she heard whispers about a jailbreak more than once. The absurdity of the trench-coat-wearing man leading a rampaging group of monkeys and rabbits to freedom caused a tiny smile to tug at her lips.

When Claire heard about the baby that was taken from its mother and given only a thin cloth for a surrogate, pity immediately rose within her. Having a parent taken from oneself was a feeling she understood well.

Gathering her resolve, she wiped the streaks of moisture from her face on the backs of her sleeves before turning to the angel. With a fortifying breath, she approached him.

"And this poor rabbit can't even see anymore. Shhh... It's okay," he assured the quivering ball of fur. "She won't hurt you. At least, I don't think she will, but the monkeys would probably disagree with me."

Before she could protest, Castiel had meandered over to another area of the lab, leaving her alone by the swollen-eyed rabbit. There was a moment of open-mouthed incredulity—here she was, trying to make amends, and he simply walked away from her.

After a moment filled with vexation, and with no other real option available, she tried again. "So… Are we going to free them now?" A thought occurred to her. "Wait. If we freed them, where would we put them?"

"After considering it for a time, I decided that the best course of action would be to transport them to their natural habitats so that they may run free and no longer be subjected to these cruel experiments."

"And how do you plan on accomplishing that?"

"They will cling to me as I transport them to their respective habitats."

The mental image had her biting the insides of her cheeks to suppress a smile. When her facial muscles were back under control, she looked him in the eye.

"Let's get started then."

* * *

"Where are we?" Claire asked. The feeling of feathers wrapped around her had disappeared and she found herself trying futilely to see in the dark once more. She attempted to take a step back and ended up knocking something to the floor. There was a _click_ above her head as a tiny bulb illuminated the room.

A variety of knickknacks cluttered the shelves around them. It was these items and their placement that allowed Claire to recognize their location. They were back at the house, but it was not the same room from which they had departed.

"This is our storage closet. Why did you bring me to the closet?"

"I have often visited this place in recent times."

"Our closet..."

"Yes. You have a large collection of games. I especially enjoyed _Twister_ and _Candy Land_. I discovered that _Clue_ was not to my taste. It involved violence—which I no longer partake in—as well as much suspicion and blaming of others. That one, I returned." He pointed to her right, where she spotted the familiar box with the faces of the "suspects" staring back at her.

"You mean you've been flitting into our house whenever you want and stealing board games?"

He reached past her and grabbed the black and red board game from the shelf. "_Uno: Wild Tiles._ I have wanted to play this game for a while now," he said fondly.

The hurt that had been rising within her quickly deflated. There was simply no sense in arguing with someone who clearly wasn't all there.

Or perhaps, she realized, he was intentionally avoiding confrontation with her. Back at the lab, and even now, he would rather defuse the situation in his own awkward way than to face the problem directly.

Hesitantly, Claire reached out and took Castiel's hand. He tensed and tried to draw away, but she held on. She pushed back memories of—ironically enough—when her father had taken her to the zoo on those many warm Sundays in the summer.

The very same hand had dwarfed her own, the same hand had been squeezed with a death grip when she saw the lions and the snakes, and the same hand had carried her when she grew too weary to walk anymore. Holding his hand again, she felt the same warmth as before, only now she knew that the skin only served to hide what lay beneath: something powerful—fragile—broken.

When she compared the being that had possessed her to the one she saw now, she couldn't bring herself to feel that same anger as before. Sadness and pity were all that remained.

"You're not my father," she said, recalling their first meeting and his first words to her. "I don't know what you're doing here, but I know that you can't make things the way they were before… and I forgive you." The almost sad quality to his voice from earlier surfaced in her mind, and she thought she understood. "Maybe they will too."

There was no response except a tight squeeze on her fingers before the pressure was released and the figure beside her vanished.

Alone now, Claire lowered herself to the floor. One hand reached for a container on the lowest shelf. It was a plain cardboard box that looked normal from every angle. On its side were the words _2-5 years_ written in black permanent marker. As the flaps were pushed apart, dust flew into the air and assaulted her nasal passages. Through sneezes and gathering tears, she lifted out several sheets of yellowed paper. She traced her finger along the waxy outline that sat on the top of the pile as she compared the three smiling figures in the memory captured on the page to the people she knew now.


End file.
